Markham languages

{{Infobox language family

|name=Markham

|region=Madang and Morobe Provinces, Papua New Guinea

|familycolor=Austronesian

|fam2=Malayo-Polynesian

|fam3=Oceanic

|fam4=Western Oceanic

|fam5=North New Guinea ?

|fam6=Ngero–Vitiaz ?

|fam7=Huon Gulf

|protoname=Proto-Markham

|glotto=mark1257

|glottorefname=Markham

}}

The Markham languages form a family of the Huon Gulf languages. It consists of a dozen languages spoken in the Ramu Valley, Markham Valley and associated valley systems in the lowlands of the Madang and Morobe Provinces of Papua New Guinea.{{cite book | first=Susanne | last=Holzknecht | title=The Markham Languages of Papua New Guinea | publisher=Pacific Linguistics| year=1989 | isbn=0-85883-394-8}}{{cite book | last = Lynch | first = John | author-link = John Lynch (linguist) |author2=Malcolm Ross |author2-link=Malcolm Ross (linguist) |author3=Terry Crowley |author3-link=Terry Crowley (linguist) | year = 2002 | title = The Oceanic languages | location = Richmond, Surrey | publisher = Curzon | isbn = 978-0-7007-1128-4 | oclc = 48929366 }} Unlike almost other Western Oceanic languages of New Guinea, which are spoken exclusively in coastal areas, many Markham languages are spoken in the mountainous interior of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea, where they are in heavy contact with Trans-New Guinea languages.{{cite web |url=https://glottolog.org |title=Glottolog |version=3.4 |editor1-last=Hammarström |editor1-first=Harald |editor2-last=Forkel |editor2-first=Robert |editor3-last=Haspelmath |editor3-first=Martin |date=2019 |location=Jena |publisher=Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History}}

Although the Markham languages are Austronesian, they have had much contact with neighboring Papuan languages.

A phonological reconstruction of Proto-Markham is presented in Holzknecht (1989) and is summarized below.